It needs to be said, at the outset, of this selective biographical sketch, that it's subject deserves to be remembered as a courageous visionary who: changed the face of both further and tertiary education in this country, particularly for those who were not recent school-leavers; and was personally the great shaper of Australia's unique and amazingly innovative eighth founded university. His institution, as moulded by him, has not as yet been sufficiently recognized to have transformed, right across the world, the hitherto prevailing orthodoxies as to how to provide and deliver tertiary education. Further, and, more immediately, he altered the prevailing notion of 'New England's wealth' from its being based on primary produce for export to a range of 'products' generated by and for the mind, and to be ultimately delivered throughout the nation and beyond by a range of technologies that are still barely understood by many of its beneficiaries.

Publication Type:

Book Chapter

Source of Publication:

New England Lives III, p. 93-120

Publisher:

University of New England in association with the Armidale and District Historical Society

The University of New England respects and acknowledges that its people, programs and facilities are built on land, and surrounded by a sense of belonging, both ancient and contemporary, of the world's oldest living culture. In doing so, UNE values and respects Indigenous knowledge systems as a vital part of the knowledge capital of Australia.